Projects Galore!

Since we've had lots of adventures outside the home lately, with musical rehearsals and shows and a trip to Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw) Island, I was happy to get to spend several days just puttering about at home, finishing and starting projects (and even doing a little housework!).

For my birthday and Mother's Day, my oldest daughter paid to have A Few of My Favorite Things quilt long-arm quilted and I was able to put the binding on. It now adds a lot of color and happiness to my bedroom.

I finally pulled an old chair out of our woods where I think the renter used it for a hunting seat. I cleaned the bits of old wood seat off it and scraped it down with steel wool and then washed it.

A coat of black spray primer/paint (which was the color I had on hand) has it ready for my new "gotta learn this" obsession - mosaic. Stay tuned to find out how that turns out.  

I also pulled out of the grass fringe a couple of old satellite dishes and spray-painted the edges till I ran out of paint. They also will be used for mosaic. I think one will be a wall-hanging to beautify the back of the garage which is a wall of our sitting area, which we nerdily call Rivendell.

This bench still needs some TLC, but since I'm not exactly sure what to do, it's on the back burner. It still looks kinda cute with the herbs on it.

I just finished painting and "planting" this old door as a backdrop for a little garden. Not sure if I'll keep adding pots of herbs, or put in some perennial flowers. I kind of wing it as I go along. I wonder if my gardens would look a little better if I planned them out first. Hmmm. Something to ponder. Meanwhile, I do like having the herbs in pots so I can hopefully bring them in the house to set in a southern window during the winter.

My girls and I have also been having fun making our tv trays look a little more creative. Can you tell I like coffee shops? Since I took this pic, Hannah suggested that I add some fabric scraps of color to this. So I went scrounging in the wastebasket and found triangles left from sewing strips together at an angle to make a scrappy binding for the quilt above. They are now splashed all over it, sitting there for me to look at periodically to see if I like it. 

When I've decided, I'll probably glue them on and then will decopage the whole thing with dishwasher safe decopage to make sure it stands up to the rigors of my coffee and tea snacks.

What have you been doing for fun?